Celebrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti

[omega minimo]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/19/DDGJ16AQ8A.DTL

90 year old Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Q: You served as a ship's commander in the Pacific during World War II. What's the most important thing you learned in the Navy?
A: In four years at sea, I learned that the sea is a monster and can turn on you at any time. Seeing Nagasaki made me an instant pacifist.



Q: How have the concerns of poets changed since you began writing?
A: In the social revolution of the 1960s, the chant was "Be here now." Today with television, e-mail and especially cell phones, it's "Be somewhere else now."



Q: Can writing be taught?
A: It has to be taut.

Q: Is texting poetry?
A: It can be.

Q: You've always been an activist, as well as an artist. What do you advise activists who are complacent now that a new, seemingly more enlightened administration is in charge?

A: The dictatorial reign of George the Second almost destroyed our civil liberties as well as our economy.

We shall now see whether an "enlightened" administration can defeat Washington, D.C.,'s culture of corruption. The press has given socialism a bad name, falsely equating it with Soviet Communism. What is needed today is a form of civil libertarian socialism in which all democratic civil rights are fully protected.

Q: Who is the love of your life?
A: Life itself is the love of my life.